No waves, no glory for The Jay at Mavericks

The Jay at Mavericks will probably not be run. The official waiting period is about to close and the surf forecasters believe there won't be the right swell and wind to get the contest running.

The Half Moon Bay hasn't seen big waves in the last weeks and Mavericks is very quiet mainly due to the La Niña year. Big waves usually hit this region of California when strong winds from the North Pacific generate a large swell and shore winds do their work.

The shallow reef of Mavericks is a very sensitive wave generator and, this year, conditions may not be sufficient to run the big wave paddle-in competition.

"The cold water, it gets huge and it's a tough wave to line up in the right spot on. And at least one person has drowned there. It's a pretty terrifying place," said Kelly Slater to the AP.

The 10-time world champion is supporting the new event's management model. The Jay at Mavericks is run by surfers and for surfers. "If we can get more people to tune in and see what these guys are all about, that's a good thing. The big wave guys are the most underpaid in surfing," Slater said.

The Jay at Mavericks Big Wave Invitational has to be surfer between December 1st and February 28th. The contest pays tribute to Jay Moriarity, a young gun that passed away unexpectedly, at the age of 22, in a diving accident in the Maldives Islands, in 2001.

The first big-wave surfing contest at Mavericks was held in 1999 with Darryl "Flea" Virostko, Richard Schmidt, Ross Clarke-Jones, and Peter Mel taking first, second, third, and fourth places, respectively.